Domestic Affairs

British politics in 2003 was dominated by the domestic repercussions of the Iraq war. Two cabinet members resigned from the government: Robin Cook, the leader of the House of Commons (and previously foreign secretary), on March 17 in protest against “the decision to commit Britain now to military action in Iraq without international agreement or domestic support,” and Clare Short (seeBiographies), the international development secretary, on May 12, saying that Prime Minister Tony Blair had reneged on a pledge to work through the United Nations to rebuild Iraq following the war.

These events took place against a backdrop of public opinion that until mid-March was hostile to military action outside the UN, then was broadly supportive of the war while it lasted and during its immediate aftermath, and after that, from June onward, was increasingly skeptical about the case that Blair and other ministers had made for regarding Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein as a dangerous threat.

These controversies were heightened by accusations by British Broadcasting Corporation reporter Andrew Gilligan that Blair had knowingly misled the public in September 2002 when a government report stated that Saddam was able to deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) at 45 minutes’ notice. Alastair Campbell, Blair’s press secretary, accused the BBC and Gilligan of having made serious allegations that were untrue and that were not checked prior to being published. (Gilligan’s reports appeared both on the BBC and in the newspaper Mail on Sunday.)

Much turned on the reliability of Gilligan’s source. On July 4 David Kelly, a WMD expert who worked for the Ministry of Defence, admitted to his line manager that he had spoken to Gilligan. Kelly’s name was confirmed to journalists on July 9. On July 15–16 Kelly gave evidence to two different committees of MPs inquiring into the buildup to war. Clearly under strain, he denied he was the source of Gilligan’s most controversial allegations. Kelly left his Oxfordshire home on July 17, telling his wife that he was going for a walk. The following morning he was found dead, with one of his wrists severely slashed.

Blair immediately announced a public inquiry into the circumstances of Kelly’s death. The immediate cause was not disputed; Kelly had committed suicide. The inquiry, however, which was conducted by Lord Hutton, a senior judge, effectively turned into an inquiry into the conduct of the government in the build-up to war. Many of the principal politicians and officials gave evidence, ranging from Blair to Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI-6. This was the first time a chief of MI-6 had ever been questioned in public. Like all the officials and politicians questioned, he denied that either ministers or the intelligence services had deliberately exaggerated the threat from Saddam. Nevertheless, the inquiry (whose report was expected to be published in January 2004) uncovered evidence of doubts within the middle ranks of the intelligence community about some of the statements made before the war. It also transpired that Saddam’s capacity to unleash WMD within 45 minutes of an order’s being given related solely to battlefield weapons and not—in contradiction to many reports at the time—to any capacity to attack British or other Western targets outside Iraq.

Short’s resignation led to the appointment of the first black woman member of a British cabinet. Baroness Amos succeeded Short in May as secretary of state for international development. Five months later she was promoted to become leader of the House of Lords. One of her tasks was to secure the next stage of reform of the Lords. Following the failure on February 4 of the House of Commons to construct a majority for any specific proposal for long-term reform, the government announced that as an interim measure it would prepare a bill to abolish the rights of the remaining 92 hereditary members to sit in the Lords. This would leave the Lords as a wholly appointed chamber. One additional reform was announced in June: the abolition of the post of lord chancellor, which had existed for almost 1,400 years. Lord Falconer (seeBiographies) was appointed in June 2003 as its final holder, pending the post’s replacement in due course by a minister of a new Department for Constitutional Affairs.

Meanwhile, opinion polls were recording widespread disillusion with the Blair government—and not simply because of controversies concerning the Iraq war. Despite presiding over a reasonably strong economy, the government was widely perceived to be failing to improve public services such as health, education, and transport. On September 18 Labour lost one of its safest seats, the north London constituency of Brent East, in a by-election necessitated by the death of the sitting MP. This was the first seat that Labour had lost in a by-election since Blair became party leader in 1994. The seat was taken by the Liberal Democrats, the third largest party in the House of Commons.

The Brent result was bad not only for Labour but also for the Conservative Party, which came in a poor third. This added to pressure on Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith. Even though the Conservatives made widespread gains in local elections held in May, he failed to establish the command over the political terrain that opposition leaders historically needed in the midterm of a Parliament in order to win the following general election. The party’s annual conference, held October 6–9, was marked by bitter factional infighting. Duncan Smith, who had been elected party leader two years earlier, pleaded for party unity; however, on October 29 Conservative MPs voted 90–75 to eject him and hold a new election for party leader. Only one person put his name forward: Michael Howard, an experienced right-wing politician who had served as home secretary in the previous Conservative government. He duly succeeded Duncan Smith on November 6.

In May the second round of elections took place for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. In Scotland the ruling Labour–Liberal Democrat coalition remained in power in the 129-seat Parliament, although Labour lost 6 seats to finish with 50, while the Liberal Democrats remained at 17. The Scottish Nationalists won 27 seats, a loss of 8, while the Conservatives held steady with 18. Two smaller parties made significant gains; the Greens won 7 seats, while the left-wing Scottish Socialist Party took 6; each party had previously held only one seat. The remaining four seats were won by three independents and one candidate standing for the Scottish Senior Citizens’ Unity Party.

In Wales Labour gained two seats, to end up with 30 out of a total of 60 seats in the Assembly. The Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru won 12 (down from 17), while the Conservatives won 11 (an increase of 2) and the Liberal Democrats were unchanged with 6. The final seat was won by a former Labour MP standing as an independent. With exactly half the seats, Labour decided to govern on its own, rather than continue the Labour–Liberal Democrat administration that had been in power before the election.

London saw a radical innovation: the introduction on February 17 of a daily £5 ($8) “congestion charge” on all cars entering the centre of the capital between 7 am and 6:30 pm, Monday to Friday. The aim of this, the first “road tax” of any large city in a major industrialized country, was both to reduce congestion and to raise money to invest in improvements in public transport. Fears that the new system would fail did not materialize. Despite some initial hiccups, the technology worked well. This involved cameras at each entry point photographing auto license plates, and penalty notices being sent to cars whose owners failed to pay the charge by 10 pm. Once the new system had settled down, traffic levels in central London were reduced 16%, and the average speed of traffic during the day was up by 37%, from 13 km/hr (8 mph) to 17 km/hr (11 mph).

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